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Adventures at Austin Peay, Part II

When I arrived, the APSU faculty were ripe for cultural change. Two administrations prior, the Faculty Senate had passed a vote of no confidence in response to the president’s financial mismanagement. The Board of Regents then hired what I would call a transitional president, someone who would sacrifice likability to impose fiscal order. By the time President Hall arrived, the university had a budgetary surplus and a once-active faculty now eager for freedom.

The economic climate of higher education also played a major role. The economic downturn had exasperated already over-exhausted state resources. It encouraged many states to experiment, and Tennessee adopted an experimental state funding formula. The new formula changed the funding metrics from the number of full-time students enrolled, to the percentage of different student bodies retained, the amount of external grants awarded, and the number of students graduated. Each state institution had to determine which percentage of its state funding would come from which metric. Having a new president with his finger on the pulse and a statistician for a provost, Austin Peay stood poised to gain. Whereas other state institutions may have been unprepared to accurately predict specific areas in the formula where the university could achieve improvements, Provost Denley specialized in predictive analytics. Dr. Denley attributed the highest percentages to the specific metrics he knew we could most improve, and Austin Peay has been on the top of the food chain ever since.

In a climate of furloughs and layoffs, Austin Peay’s employees earned raises, and the faculty’s enemy shifted from the administration acting all administrationy, to an external economic monster that eats institutional stagnancy for breakfast. President Hall became our articulate captain against the leviathan; Provost Denley, his trusted first mate.

And with the help of the prior administration’s budgetary surplus, one-time federal stimulus money, and a Title III grant, they empowered a once-active faculty now eager for change.

If you haven’t guessed, I’m writing my way into a better understanding of what happened here, because whatever it was or is, it’s magnificent.